Every night before I go to bed I think about killing Harry. I could easily do it, as I have already killed many of his ilk. And I have the skillset, the weapons and the motivation to do so. Moreover, murder would be justifiable because he is ugly, hideous actually – with long, jaggedy legs, nasty chompers and dull eyes. And I know where he lives!

Lately he hasn’t even bothered to hide when I turn on the bathroom light. He just hunkers in the corner above the toilet, apparently not threatened by my presence since I have ignored him for the last two weeks, during which time he has gotten bigger and uglier, probably because he eats a lot of the tiny bugs that live in the plants. That’s a good thing, I suppose. He has some purpose, some value. However, I must be clear: the reason I have spared Harry has to do with neither gratitude nor mercy. In order to explain my abstinence from killing him and others like him, I need to flash back to a week ago when I conducted the first yard activity of this spring season.

The first mowing-of-the-lawn is a source of excitement, yet tempered with some degree of skepticism and a sense of guilt. The excitement, and relief, is in the certainty that winter has passed and snow shovels and brushes, gloves, hats and boots are banished to dark corners out of sight and mind. The skepticism comes with the awareness that these lovely green lawns will soon become annoyances because, around here, they grow faster than facial hair on a werewolf. This is the first of a thousand monotonous hours of tooling around in ever shrinking circles punctuated by fits of sneezing, coughing and dizzy spells (especially for those inclined to drink alcohol while mowing).

The guilt comes with the awareness that humans have seemingly made random distinctions as to what plants are worthy of protection and preservation, and what are odious and therefore must be chopped, sliced, or poisoned to death. We become, in essence, plant-icidal maniacs, especially against dandelions, crabgrass, clover and a host of wildflowers. We make this executive decision every year to banish all such interlopers and to relegate our lawns to a two-inch layer of green uniformity.

It was during the blissful stage of my first mow that I had an epiphany of sorts. Pushing the mower in large, counterclockwise circles, I felt a presence of something extraordinary that was capturing my attention. It was always to my left, toward the inner section of the lawn. Soon, as the circles tightened, I found myself in the midst of a heavenly field of little purple flowers (and I swear I was unmedicated at the time). It was mesmerizing, this magical patch, like a sparkling purple sanctuary.

But I cut it all down anyway. It was a job that had to be done, and I did it. No use putting it off, or leaving it all uneven like a bad haircut. Still, the whole thing has left me disturbed, and with a self esteem problem. I have been a butcher and a cowardly conformist.

I would be lying if I said I had dreams that night of a paradise island suddenly bombed to oblivion by some war monger. Or that I went to confession for the first time in eons (where Father Dan fell asleep during my litany of transgressions). Or that I planted a flower garden as a means of atonement. None of that is true. But what is true is that in the future I will be more delicate and artful, leaving select patches of purple strategically scattered about the lawn in protest against the hegemonic green monotony of the neighborhood. That is my vow.

Returning to Harry the spider, I must say that spiders have always gotten a bad rap. In nature, we have been warned about nasty, vindictive black widows (though I suspect that many women secretly admire their moxy). In fiction, JK Rowling created Aragog to terrorize Ron Weasley. J.R.R.Tolkien’s oversized Shelob was an abomination of nature, wrapping up Frodo Baggins like a chicken burrito before Samwise managed to poke her eye out.

It would be better to think of spiders as just one of many hunters of the natural world, maybe even a merciful hunter, whose venom is medicinal for the captive fly or moth, a sort of euphoria-producing anesthetic preceding death. Or, in fiction, we might think of them as something like E.B. White’s Charlotte, whose website of enchanting words saved Wilbur the pig from becoming Christmas dinner.

So, I have made a pledge this spring to live and let live. Purple flowers and spiders have a right to life, and I will leave them to it. But, as a warning to Harry, if he gets too close, like within arm’s length, he will be swiftly reduced to a brown splotch on a white tissue.

Musician, writer, house painter Pete Howard lives in Dunkirk. Send comments to odyssmusic20@gmail.com